You know, contrary to the implication of the graphic, McDonald's pays significantly more than the minimum wage. Most jobs there start at $8 and level at $10 -- not a princely sum but not bad for fast food.

This hike does jack shit for people working at McD's.

Yay, inflation!

California's minimum wage is $8.00. Raised $1.25 in the last 2 years.

well good news is that they save a sh*t ton on car insurance by taking the bus... oh wait those rates are going up as well.....

illinois, fuck yeah.

$7.75

But in the last seven years, we've created thousands of jobs! Sure, they were mostly minimum wage jobs, but that doesn't show very well on political ads!

Meanwhile, China is making a killing...

Once again my degrees have become devalued. Gotta love that I'm still paying out the nose for college while people are getting free raises.

How is this relevant to The Consumerist? Does it not benefit the consumer to keep wages low in low skilled jobs? Does someone who flips burgers really need to be paid anything over six or seven dollars and hour? Its a job, not a career. If one must rely on this job for to support ones family, it's time to take stock.

I'm trying to understand minimum wage hikes, but it seems to me that most places that pay minimum wage just pass the costs on to consumers. And since most places that pay minimum wage are frequented by people that make minimum wage -- how exactly does increasing minimum wage increase actual purchasing power?

An hour of minimum wage buys a burger, fries and a coke historically.

And what about the people that make only slightly more than minimum wage? Do most companies give them an increase as well to maintain the difference in purchasing power between those two employees? I would think that people that make slightly more than minimum wage get screwed over.

@ctaylor:

Someone will correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe that if someone makes a buck or two over minimum wage when the increase goes through, they usually get a small increase as well.

And the more money that employers have to pay their workers, the more they have to charge for the goods/services they supply and/or cut back on employees.

Raising minimum wage may help some people, which is good for them. But it may hurt those who need the goods/services whose prices were increased due to the minimum wage increase. It's a terrible cycle, and for individuals, the chips fall where they land. I have a problem with minimum wage laws, but it's sadly not something that can be fixed easily.

A minimum wage job is just that...a minimum wage job. Anyone working one shouldn't be trying to support themselves or much less a family. If you are, it's time to find something new...if you can't, chances are you f'd up somewhere along the way and there's a reason for it. Sorry, no sympathy here.

That said, why is this a bad thing? All the high school kids who should be working these jobs are probably happy about this, and the future increase coming next summer. Sure, it's not much, but with today's economy it's something...

Hey consumerist, Communist Cuba is just a short trip south, free market economics is what got us the standard of living we have now and screwing with and in some cases scraping free market economics is a fast track to totalitarianism and bread lines.

Raising the minimum wage is just some easy way rich, out of touch, politicians can give the idea that they are taking care of the poor when in reality it is a move in the direction of socialism which we all know makes every one poor (expect for the ones who are connected with goverment who by there position are well taken care of with our tax money)

If minimum wage is too little to live on then you'll just have to get a second job, 80 hours a week is possible, Or train for a skilled job that makes more or if you can't work then you can go to the church and they may provide your with charity.

More goverment is NOT the answer.

@00447447: Yeah, where I work we all got adjusted somewhere to the tune of 30-40 cents so that people who had been here longer wouldn't get fucked over. That said, I had to wait 3 months after I was promised a raise for my promotion so that payroll could do it all at once :(

@ctaylor:
Someone will correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe that if someone makes a buck or two over minimum wage when the increase goes through, they usually get a small increase as well.

Funny.

Nice to see the other trolls have come out too.

I've done 80 hour +10 hours travel a week before. Possible, but good luck finding 2 accommodating companies and good luck having any sort of family life. There is sure as hell no way to take care of kids if you have 2 full time jobs.

Then again, one of those jobs was a month of "training", sitting in a classroom. It still sucked.

@3drage: Exactly. I have a degree in Graphic Design and it pays jack sh*t even with 13 years experience. I am proud to say that I have a job that even the illegals won't do because it doesn't pay well.

I love how the free market zealots crawl out of their holes whenever the minimum wage inches up a little. Don't worry, folks -- you can continue to pay illegal aliens whatever you want, or nothing at all.

We need basic protections for labor in this country, or people get stepped on by industry. Minimum wage, workplace safety rules, harassment rules, child-labor laws -- these things are all related, and they point to the fact that businesses can not be trusted with the well-being of their employees. There's concrete historical evidence to back that up; by way of contrast, show me one time in history when increasing the minimum wage has led anywhere near to the economic armageddon soothsaid by the free marketers.

More faith in enterprise is NOT the answer.

"Minimum wage workers to get first pay raise in 12 years..." I loved seeing that old chestnut of a headline bandied about. Can I get a show of hands of those who were making minimum wage in 1996 and still making the same each year since then? Anyone? Anyone?

Another favorite is to use people making above the minimum wage as a reason to raise the minimum wage. Andrew Tobias did this a few years ago in a Parade article. The facts are that when the government raises a price floor on wages, it expands the surplus of idle labor.

@PunditGuy: Illegals are working for nothing? Where can I get one?

Better idea: Enforce the border and eliminate minimum wage laws.

@boy: Oh, really?

You know some people are born with disability's and aren't able to get the kind of education that you and I were able to get. They have a choice when they hit adulthood, work for minimum wage, possibly part time only or suck of the Government tit for your tax dollars. Which would you have them do?

@ctaylor: The price you pay for a hamburger is not entirely made up from labor costs. Most of the money you spend still comes from the raw materials used in the making of the hamburger. Some of it also goes into rent and utilities and whatnot. Therefore, raising minimum wage 70 cents per hour does not raise the price of a hamburger 70 cents or even the requisite percentage. The amount of any price increases made to cover the increased labor costs (if such an increase even occurs) would be tiny compared to the increase in wages for the workers, who will then ultimately be able to purchase more hamburgers with their higher wages.

This is really simple economics, people.

@3drage: That's a moronic comparison. The fact is is that minimum raise workers haven't enjoyed a wage increase in years, while I'd bet your profession has. You make it sound as if they're handing out gold foil toilet paper for the poor to wipe their ass with.

@krispykrink: Given the options, I vote minimum wage.

@Hongfiately: So you're saying that minimum wage workers starting a job today shouldn't get a bump for the cost of inflation?

Christ people like you make me want to go bat shit. You whine and complain because people live on welfare, but you don't want anyone to make a living wage either...
Go buy some granite already...

@rellog: My guess is the number of people making $5.15 each year from 1996-2008 is very small. It's not a strong argument to humanize those making the minimum wage as if it's a static group of people these 12 long years.

N.B. That applies to all income strata or professions. "CEOs made 400% more this year than a migrant fruit-pickers." "CEOs" is an across the board term, it isn't human. Plus, if the fruit-picker is here illegally they can get in-state tuition rates that citizens cannot. Score!

I think 3drage is employing a bit of hyperbole, but the point remains: when you raise a price floor, everything above it is devalued.

@rellog: Did I whine and complain about welfare? Nope. Last I checked, President Clinton ended welfare as we knew it in 1996. But I digress.

Define living wage. That's rather arbitrary, isn't it? Is $7.25 an hour enough? Why not $10? Why not $40? Why not $100? $100 an hour is a pretty good living wage for most metropolitan areas, right?

What I'm saying is that a minimum wage worker who started at $5.15 an hour in 1996 and is STILL working for $5.15 an hour after twelve years absolutely deserves that pay rate because that's what the market has determined he/she is worth.

Almost no one falls into that category. Most either moved on to college, or advanced in their employment as skills were acquired via training or experience.

Are teenagers considered the working poor now?

@boy: I find that offensive, and I feel as though you're naive in saying these things.

I'll use myself and my experiences as an example. I live in South-East Michigan, and we have the worst economy in the entire country. I work for a retailer with about 20 employees, and 3 members of management. The 20 make between $7.00 and $8.50 an hour, and 16 of them are part-time.

Of these 16 part-time employees, most of which have been with us for over 18 months, 6 have bachelor's degrees, and additional 6 have either associate's degrees or equivalent certifications in the medical and technology fields. All of us continue our education while working, even though we originally had planned join the work force, because we can't afford to start making payments on our tuition loans... attending school if our method of payment deferment.

We fill positions that six years ago would have been filled by seniors in high school, or juniors in college, most which would start with our company as their first job. Now when these young job seekers applying to work, they are turned down, just like everywhere around here.

I will be graduating from college in two months, but before I can graduate I must complete an internship in a relevant job position. Unfortunately for me, and my follow classmates, there are practically no internship opportunities available.
Why? Because those with many years of work experience and already hold previous education credentials are desperately seeking work. Many of them are going back to school part-time just to use the career-guidance services of local universities and community colleges, getting internships hoping they will lead to a full-time job. From my point of view they are taking away my opportunities at internships. When I go in for an interview (for an unpaid internship), I find myself competing against someone with 20 years of experience in my field.

Wow, typing all of that felt good.

@Quatre707: How does raising the federal minimum wage to $6.55 help you and your colleagues when Michigan's minimum wage is $7.40 per hour as of July 1? Have you seen the part-timers hours being cut after that boost at the first of the month?

Also... why not move? There's a lot of opportunity in the medical and technical fields down south and out west. Not sure if you're in that group you described, though.

@Hongfiately: I wasn't directing my statement at this article, I was directing it at boy, who said:
"All the high school kids who should be working these jobs are probably happy about this"

Horray for unemployment!

If an employer can only afford to hire someone for less than the minimum wage, then that employee can't be hired. Now they're unemployed instead of making some money. Is that better?

@Quatre707: Point taken. But in most cases boy is right. With the poor economy in your area, however, this actually is going to put the squeeze on those kids. You're working the jobs the kids should be working, and at the same time you are going up against people with loads of experience for internships. When the economy is in that sort of shape, the squeeze affects all levels.

My in-laws live in northern Ohio, and their economy is going through similar tough times and has been for many years now. Most of it is due to the shift away from manufacturing. Once everyone is done blaming outsourcing (boo! hiss!), you wake up and have to figure out what to do about it. One thing they are doing is expanding services and technology initiatives, like the one at Lorain County Community College.

That's the way to go for your area, I think. Doesn't help you pay the light bill this month, I know, but you've got a group of folks there in two fields that are hurting for people to fill jobs.

And the whole reason for the minimum wage (read: subsistence wage) being so low? The tying of health care to employment. Employers have to pay ridiculous premiums, meaning they can't afford to pay living wages to employees.

Back in 2002, the US and Canadian minimum wages were about equal, based the values of the respective dollars. Today, with the dollars being almost par (C$1=US$.99 or C$1.01=US$1) and the Canadian health care system, the US has dropped below the Canadian standard of living, even with the increase in the US minimum wage.

[canadaonline.about.com]

Minimum Wage in Canada

Updated: 07/02/08

Province...........General Wage

Alberta............$8.40

British Columbia...$8.00

Manitoba...........$8.50

New Brunswick......$7.75

Newfoundland.......$8.00

NWT................$8.25

Nova Scotia........$8.10

Nunavut...........$10.00

Ontario............$8.75

PEI................$7.75

Quebec.............$8.50

Saskatchewan.......$8.60

Yukon..............$8.58

@P_Smith: I don't know anyone who is actually paid the national minimum wage. Rest assured, 1.7 million out of the US population is about half a percent. Some states may not have a higher wage than the national minimum wage, but there are also local minimum wages. In San Francisco, the minimum wage is higher than the state minimum wage ($9.14/hour).

"The nation's top financial minds can't tell us how the minimum wage effects the economy, but we're sure our beloved cadre of ever-cheerful commenters not only knows for certain, but is willing to share."

Under what auspice do you claim this? Economists worldwide state the effects of an increase in minimum wage is inflation and unemployment...common sense dictates that? Was your snide remark an attempt at preemptively disarming the commenters; as if their credibility could be diminished at your behest?

For shame.

Everyone here makes valid points in all their arguments.

It's kind of a double edged sword. I like seeing a good minimum wage for those that are disabled that want to actually be part of the work force. They have bills just like everyone else, and $6 in this day just ain't gonna cut it. Yes, those people will get raises over time well above the minimum and the good thing in CA if you're only making minimum, you qualify for MediCal and Foodstamps to help cover the gaps.

The bad part, last time CA raised the limit the businesses I know either cut hours for staff or flat out fired people so they can pay those they kept. In the restaurant business this equates to higher price for the customer and less employees to cover the floor. Some businesses end up firing higher paid middle and upper management to keep the hourly workers, so the next time you have a fraked up time at Sears this is why.

BC has a training wage of about 6$/hr for the first 500 hrs in an employees lifetime of work.

Even at 17$/hr, with benefits, this man I know can not support his family of 5. Wife can't work because he's on graveyard shift, or else she would be. Just not fair.

I can't believe some of you are so cold-hearted as to believe that minimum wage is fine, or that people who work at minimum wage should just "get a better paying job," or that minimum wage shouldn't exist at all.

These are the people who prepare your food at Quizno's, walmart, call centers of products you can't figure out how to use, sell you magazines, wash your car, do your laundry, clean your hotel room, and the countless other jobs that you take for granted. If there was a $50,000/year job waiting for each of these people, you'd have to make your own god damned food, and make sure you scrubbed your hotel rooms toilets before you left.

We don't live in the shiny, perfect future where magical robots do all the dirty work and gourmet food shoots out of tubes. Our world is polluted and full of poor people trying to scrape by.

So, look at minimum wage equivalents from 40 years ago. How many people in this country make over $10 an hour? Quite a few.

But those who don't make that much? Or who make nothing at all due to unemployment? Those numbers are staggering. People who make next to nothing buy the bare minimum. Which is just one more reason for recession.

You don't want to pay $5 bucks a gallon? Stop screwing over your fellow man. He wants that iPod too, and will buy it if he has enough left over after food and shelter. Besides, he's the guy who had to deal with you complaining about your cup of soda being "breakfast sized." Or have you refusing to pay cuz your pizza wasn't delivered in 30 minutes or less. He should make more than you.

Stop being a cheapskate. These are real people.

In the 50s and 60s, we built the Interstate Highway system. Now we can't even maintain it. We sent men to the moon and now we're going to buy our heavy lift rockets from Japan. Health care used to be affordable but no
more for a majority of citizens. Budweiser is no longer an American beer. Chrysler is no longer an American company. Medicare and Social Security are going broke. Foreign citizens are buying our expensive real estate. And it
goes on and on....Next year, the minimum wage will rise to a whopping $7.25 per hour when, adjusted for inflation, the minimum wage in 1968 was $10.06 per hour. So
all the minimum wage workers have managed to lose about $2.75 per hour in purchasing power in the last 40 years. And all the while, we've had the sacred goal of an ever growing "economy." Apparently, the growth in the economy has been pretty selective in where it has settled. So on to the rhetorical question. Where has all the money gone? You don't have to be an Einstein to answer that question. Can you say Wall Street? What all those poor boys need is yet another tax cut because it just ain't fair enough yet.

My last post, credit goes to - CREvans

@P_Smith:

Alberta's is actually 8.50 right now...

and it's going up to 9 in the next couple months.

Meh at Safeway wanting to start it's employees at $8 an hour (California minimum)

I started at $7.50. Not enough to get by in this world. I'll agree that a minimum wage boost would likely stimulate the economy.

Still, I do my American duty and blow some money on stuff I don't need every paycheck. ;)

hey hey hey, i used to earn 15 dollars a day. 6.55 is pretty good. too bad the us dollar is in the buckets though.

@nonzenze:

Which McD's are you working at? The ones around me pay exactly $7.00/hr (the Ohio min wage) to start out.

You know not everyone's life is perfect. We all make mistakes and apparently in America according to some people you should be fucked, You should receive no welfare or social care while you look for a job. If you get a job at McDonalds (or whatever Minimum Wage) you shouldn't even remotely be able to bring yourself back on your feet.

I love the answer to it all: Become religious and beg the church for money.

I'm glad we had some sensible people that actually raised the minimum wage. I'm sorry you think working to create your burger so you can get a heart attack is doing nothing. They work hard and deserve to get paid enough to live.

The best thing about all of this is that those pinko socialists in Europe have such high minimum wages and generous labor laws that common wisdom would have predicted their economies would have ground to a halt years ago.

The highest national minimum wage I can find is in the UK where it's £5.73. That's about $11.39 give or take a few pennies due to exchange rate fluctuations.

Somehow they can pay the least of their workers a decent wage, but we can't.

The problem with raising the minimum wage is that anyone not worth the new minimum wage is let go. Also, most people at minimum wage are high school students anyway.

@inspiron: Thank you.

@kaptainkk: It has gone to the government. Probably most of it the military industrial complex, since right about half of what the federal government spends is on the military and war. Oh and remember those inflation adjusted rates are adjusted to the governments inflations numbers, not the true inflation numbers, which are higher.